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Sunday, June 11, 2017

The Heat Is On

That turd dropping gaggle of geese I first encountered in May was spotted on the shores of Merimere Reservoir on Sunday. That's not the only repeat encounter I had this weekend. The goslings have grown quite a bit.

Thanks to Paul Bernier for joining me this week in keeping the trails clean. Paul and I started earlier than usual because of expected high temps during the weekend.

In the past couple weeks I spotted broken glass on the trails and in the parking lot at West Peak. Our route would take us past all the spots to clean up. Broken glass can especially be a problem for dogs.

We were roughly 2/3 the way to Castle Craig when we stopped to sweep up the first of the glass.

As Paul and I made our way up to Castle Craig, I spotted some new graffiti but I wasn't equipped to deal with it; it would wait until Sunday.

Once at the top, we walked the road over to West Peak. Enroute we found this car front fender part which was abandoned.

I placed it in a visible spot and planned to notify the Meriden Parks Department Monday to pick it up. Hopefully, sticky fingers won't move it, which happens often.

At West Peak, I swept up 3 separate areas of shattered glass and put them in my trash bag. They may not look like much but they were much more unsightly than the photos depict.

Paul and I then followed the trails down and over I-691.

In May I reported about one of the two flags which are typically displayed on the walkbridge over I-691 had been removed. In this case it's the flag over the eastbound lanes. I promised to report when it would be replaced by the mysterious person that installs these flags about the same time each year. Well, this week the missing flag was replaced.

Further on along the walkbridge I spotted some repeat graffiti. I first found and removed the same markings the same week I discovered the missing flag.

Paul and I returned to the park and dropped off our bags of litter for the week.

Later on Saturday I returned to Hubbard Park while on a bike ride and brought my pocket dynamite-sandpaper.

Here's the repeat tag I mentioned above, on the bridge:

Here's a better view from Saturday morning:

And here, it's gone:

I inspected the remainder of the bridge and found some more graffiti:

The other graffiti bugged me enough to pack both a gallon of paint AND spray paint and return to the park Sunday morning. Temps were expected to reach the 80's on Sunday so I got an early start.

I hiked up to the Halfway House and broke out the spray can:

Once dry it should flatten out and fade nicely.

I hiked up to Castle Craig, stopping at the other graffiti spots and taking care of business, perhaps following the path our can of red spray paint did.

Like Rock-Paper-Scissors, Brown covers Red.

And Gray covers White.

I reached the fork in the road to East/West Peak and hoped to find my car part still on the concrete block. Alas; sticky fingers DID get to it and I found it in the road, again.

Here's hoping this time it will stay put until Monday morning.

I walked the road down, around Merimere Reservoir, and back to the park, collecting litter as I walked. I encountered one more spot of graffiti, but this time on the road.